Esperanto

Esperanto, a constructed and the most widely spoken auxiliary language, designed by Zamenhof in the late 19th century as an international auxiliary language.

Esperanto activity is also called green star business (lo crino tartai cuntu).

spero is the Lojbanic root-word for Esperanto and Esperanto culture. Other words are bangrnesperanto and sperybau for the Esperanto language itself. Created by la .zamenxof.

Lojbanists and Esperanto

A great number of Lojbanists studied Esperanto before coming to Lojbanistan. Formerly (in the 'Tweeners era) a substantial number of Lojbanists were familiar with Esperanto. This no longer appears to be the case. Still here are some of them who can speak Esperanto: la selpa'i, la gleki, la ilmen, nitcion, xorxes, maiky'elsym, cein, stivyn.

Is Esperanto a rival to Lojban? There is little overt rivalry (except on the vexing 'Sixteen Rules' issue...). The situation can be considered as a case of complementarity: International Auxilliary Language claims are renounced in order to focus on issues which simply don't exist in Esperanto.

References

• spero
• "On a Bitter Occasion" by Kalman Kalocsay in English and Lojban.
• This poem, translated from Esperanto (original: http://ftp.std.com/obi/Esperanto/texts/en-amara-horo.txt) by la .nitcion. waaaay back (obsolete Lojban alert) is a sober self-critique and reformulation of Esperantists' attitude to their own language.

• esperanto.net
• Esperanto, the Agressor Language!